Page 167 of Haunt Me

Smooth. Just like Spencer instructed.

Theo chuckles lightly and everyone sort of laughs, diffusing the tension. They give us some space, and I just stand there, rooted to the spot, terrified that Eden will walk away from me. She doesn’t.

“You’re blushing,” she says, looking down. Were her eyelashes always this long? They are reddish-brown to match her hair, turning almost white in the sunshine and sending soft shadows down her freckled cheeks.

“I should be; that was extremely awkward,” I tell her, trying to take in a normal breath.

“I liked it,” she smiles.Look at me.“Made me feel as if I’m in one of your songs.”

“Youarein one of my songs,” I reply. “Several of them.”Then I think aboutHeartbreaker, and I wish I hadn’t said anything. It’s such a bitter song.

She is still looking at her shoes. I am trying so hard not to kiss her right now that I can’t think straight.I bet that would make her look at me. No, stop.

“I wish I could rewrite them,” I say and she scoffs lightly. I clear my throat. “Spencer just told me about what happened with your poems.”

Eden turns her face around until all I can see is a waterfall of curls over her slender neck, and I want to kick myself when I remember what she wrote in them about me. About how I hurt her.

“I read a few of the new ones, just now,” I say quickly, reaching out a hand to touch her elbow. “As many as I could. I’m sorry—I know you meant to keep them hidden. I just… I couldn’t help myself.”

“It’s ok. Everyone in the world has read them, it seems.”

“Am I everyone, Eden?” I am shaking slightly. Not slightly.

This is a knife to the heart. I am not everyone, am I? Then again, maybe I’m nobody now. To her.

“Eden, is this you?” I pull up theSo You Don’t Want To Staypoem on my phone. “Do you… Did you think like that. Do you think about leaving?” Leavingme, I think, but I don’t say it. I feel like I’m about to drop to my knees and heave my guts out from raw fear.

“No,” she replies at once, her voice curious, as if it hadn’t occurred to her that the thought of losing her destroys me.

How can she not know that everything else is bearable—everything but that. I have been coddling myself all this time, holding on to the pain. But this…Thiswould hurt. Losing her.

“So you never felt that way?” I ask her.

“I did not. But my therapist said I was high risk.”

I flinch at the thought, but she just keeps speaking in her calm, new, grown-up voice.

“I never had those thoughts,” she says, “but I can understand those who do.” She means Teddy. I nod. “He… is struggling. We kind of bonded over that. Actually, he was the one who talked to Wes Spencer about giving me a job. Can you imagine? Just because of this one poem. About me sharing with the world that some days, I found it hard to face each morning. Still do.”

My heart stops at her words.Please, God, no.

“I know what it’s like,” she adds.

“Yeah,” I say in a strangled voice. “You do.”

And I thoughtIwas struggling. And all this time… she was facing this. She was surviving this. Fighting this.

“It’s beautiful, Eden.” My throat is clogged with tears. I swallow them down, but they spill down my cheeks. “Your talent, Eden. My God.”

“Thanks,” she replies. “It… it came from the deepest part of my soul.”

“I know,” I reply. “It pierced mine. You pierced my soul.”

She makes a dismissive sound, which only urges me to repeat myself.

“Every syllable was like a punch to the gut. I already knew how talented you are, but these poems are exquisite. I wish they did not come from so much pain, but reading them, I realized… Eden, you wear grief like a damn crown. I wish—” I push a hand through my hair. “For the thousandth time, I wish I had known what you were going through back then. And I want to tell you, about what you wrote about me kissing other girls, Eden, I swear—”

“We don’t need to talk about that now, Isaiah.” Her voice is so sad as she interrupts me. So sad I want to die.

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